Too often we as Christians are just not real. Or maybe we are as real as we think we are supposed to be but we are living out a sense of how a Christian should be rather than just being frank with God and each other about who we really are. I know too many Christians that are miserable because they are trying to live a perfect picture faith on the outside. I think sometimes we are so used to the image of the Christian that we should be, that we convince ourselves we are that image; but those around us see through the falseness and we get a reputation for being hypocrites. It is so easy to see other’s faults but never our own.
Even worse is when we as Christians try to share our struggles with others in the church only to be shot in the back by those who should understand how much of a sinner we all are. We just try to pretend we are something we are not – sinless. Combine our inability to admit we are dirty, sinful creatures with our determined American Individuality, (the pick yourself up by your boot straps mentality) and you get a deadly caricature of what a Christian probably looks like to rest of the world. We do it to ourselves and then wonder why the world looks at us as such hypocrites. Christianity is meant to overcome our own cultural inadequacies. All cultures have their flaws because all people are depraved. We are sinful!
I think we just aren’t real enough with each other. There is a tension to our faith in Jesus Christ. The God of the Bible is a difficult God to understand. This is what I mean when I say there is a dark side to faith. We really don’t like to admit to each other that we are struggling to hold on to what we believe. And when someone does admit their struggle to hold tight to their faith they are verbally or emotionally reprimanded by fellow believers who are shocked at our lack of faith. But being real and being honest is what will get us through what John of the Cross called the Dark Night of the Soul. King David was very expressive in being real and honest with God and he got the title Man after God’s own heart – a compliment indeed. Read the Psalms to see his honesty. We are going to face those crises of belief moments that Henry Blackaby discusses in Experiencing God. God takes us into those moments and grows us through them.
So to my point that there is a dark side of faith I say to you, lose a child like me that seems to be perfectly fine. Have a birth experience that is pretty uneventful without any worries that something is wrong only to watch your child come into the world with a faint heartbeat and never to take a breath. Then tell me things like, “Oh, God has a reason for this.” Really? Are you saying that God did this intentionally to teach me something? Watch your child receive CPR and nothing happen. Pray and pray and pray only to feel that your prayers were never really heard. Watch this and then have someone make you feel like you have no faith because you are not over this yet. This is the dark side of faith when we cannot explain God we put Him in a box to make ourselves feel better. But be careful because when you think you know God, he swoops down and takes the carpet out from under you.
However, through all of the emotional ups and downs I experience I know God is there. I am just waiting on Him to come through. I am waiting because He always has and he always will come through. That is what He does - come through. No matter how evil the world gets, no matter how dark life feels, no matter how small my faith gets, He always comes through. Our faith is going to be challenged, my faith has. A real part of me wants to throw my hands up in the air and say, “I’m done God. I just cannot trust you to take care of me.” (This is the part where I am being honest – don’t freak out). There is a part of me that reads the story of Herod killing all the babies in Bethlehem 2 years and younger because he thought he could kill the Messiah. I read that and I really understand what those parents went through that night as they lost their children. I understand the agony and the not knowing why. I know the crying out to God and asking why? Why? They never found out on this side. I read this story and I think, “God, you could have done things different, you could have intervened – but you did not” and I cry out why? It is ok Christian to cry out why? God is not scared of your doubt.
But, in time we must come to the place where we either decide to trust that he will make all things right again or we must walk away from our faith. It doesn’t mean that life moves on and we forget what has happened to us. On the contrary, what has happened to us has reshaped our life and we will forever be different. I cannot be the same and those Christians who think that I should move on past this and just go back to being normal, there is no normal now but I will choose to trust God with my life and He is going to come through. That is the bright side of faith.
